#rafal's view on time is a whole lot of “i won't think about it because it's never proven relevant. but when i do. when i HAVE to..."

[rafent]

hc + time

hc + a word > TIME

Time to a dragon is a sensitive if not layered topic. It strikes me as something that most might interpret similarly in the vein of losing loved ones and remaining stagnant. For Rafal, that concept is in its earliest stage, he remains aware of it in theory but it hasn't proven applicable so far.

Keywords: so far.

Rafal's entire life being a run of back-to-back stressors, from worrying about survival, to agonizing over Nel disowning him upon discovery of his true identity, to grappling with the revelation of Sombron's control, so on and so forth, there was never a pause for the meaning and profundity of time to sink in. He recognizes that he has a different place in it than other creatures, but time to Rafal isn't yet an inexorable march that takes and takes with every inch.

The most crippling losses of his life didn't come from transient humans that time took away, they came from Nil and Nel—fellow dragons—who met bloody ends by their own hands or by another. Knowing how deeply Rafal grieves over Nil, and how he continues to do so with exploration lines that refer to him, there is definitely room for Rafal to reach a similar conclusion to other dragons; that time can bring pain, that the whole world will pass him by as he stays in one place.

At best, Rafal will forlornly accept it - learn to as all his kind do, and adapt. At worst, being refractory and intensely feeling, he'll keep his unhappiness pent up and explode before he provides an outlet for any of his reasonable agitation regarding the topic. Either way, to Rafal the effects of time are hopelessly beyond his control; a reflective return to the grief and powerlessness he thought he left behind.